Science | Space
The orbital period of Dimorphs has been reduced by 32 minutes, as announced by NASA on Tuesday.
On September 26, NASA collided the DART probe with the asteroid Dimorpho, which did not pose a threat to Earth, solely in order to check whether humans are capable of protecting our planet by diverting the orbit of these celestial bodies in case that one of them gets dangerously close to us in the future. Until today, different possibilities were considered about the consequences of the impact, but nobody knew exactly what the result of the operation would be, or if the collision of a relatively small vehicle – weighing about 600 kg, compared to the 10 million tons that Diformo weighs – would be able to induce remarkable changes in the asteroid.
At a press conference organized by NASA on Tuesday, the US space agency announced what is known to date about the results of the DART mission. According to observations made by different space and ground telescopes, the impact has modified the asteroid’s orbit, which has meant a reduction in its orbital period of 32 minutes.
Also, it appears that Dimorph’s surface is a mass of debris held together by the force of mutual gravity that holds the Didimos-Dimorph system together, much of which was thrown out by DART’s impact on the asteroid’s surface. As a consequence, a trail of 10,000 kilometers of small fragments now floats in space, giving the impression that Dimorph has a bright tail similar to that of comets, as seen in an image taken two days after the impact by the telescope. SOAR of Chile, operated by NOIRLab.
#Success #DART #mission #impact #diverted #trajectory #asteroid